Bible study, open to all

[Autodidact]

Murder is wrong, killing is not. There is a difference.

1. My point was not about right and wrong, but about whether you would mind. Since death is not the end (according to you) and in fact just beginning of a glorious eternal life, you would not mind if someone happened to murder you

If you understood why evil is necessary, you would not make that comment. Evil is necessary, I will not tell you why, that is up to you to figure out.

That's a good one. You allege that evil is necessary--for God, mind you, but can give no idea why. I'm supposed to figure out why you assert that evil is necessary for your non-existent God. Heck of an argument you've got there.

God cannot do anything anyway - some things are impossible to do.

So God is not all-powerful then?

You cannot give someone free agency and force them to use it as you will. If it is possible, He can do it - however, some things are literally impossible. It is impossible to make a square circle....

No free agency is involved. We're talking about what God commanded his followers to do, remember? God commanded His followers to kill foreign babies. He couldn't think of any other way to accomplish whatever it was that He felt was so important?

14 Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:

Well, cursing children isn' t very nice, but it beats the heck out of killing them.

the Bible spends so much time with geneology - who begat who - why? There are family traits that are passed down. Each lineage has their own blessings and curses. They were protecting their own children - what would they leave for their family? The choice, preserve the lives of the children of their enemies, or preserve the lives of their own children? By not killing the children of their enemies, those kids would grow up and kill their own children. I think it was commanded to preserve their future family.

Have I mentioned how absolutely disgusting and immoral this world-view is? And how it contributes to the perpetuation of war and conflict right up to the present day? If you are working on making sure that anyone who reads this thread does not become Christian, you're doing a heck of a job.

The "evil" that the Midianites did was the exact same as that of the Hebrews. They attacked Hebrews and killed them. Then the Hebrews attacked the Midianites and killed them. And so forth, back and forth. Oh, and they worshiped a different God. That's it. btw, why do you think God didn't need to kill the virgins, but asked for 32 of them for Himself?

by small things are large things brought to pass. It was not just a little coveting and adultry - they LOVED sin, they no longer had a concious, they were beyond help or God would have helped them.

And you know this how?

The idea that there are evil people who are beyond help is the key idea that causes people to do evil. In reality, there are only people, and we are all pretty much the same. We all have the ability to love and forgive, and we all have a tendency to revenge and violence. Here, God is encouraging the latter--the evil tendency that we all have, and you are justifying it by subscribing to the myth that some of God's children are evil. If we are ever to find peace, we must all resist this tendency to revenge.

They were attacking Israel - there are things worse than death that you can do to someone. They were poluting the Israelites, they were leading them down to hell. A fate much worse than just death.

Oh my God! They were attacking them! And the Israelites are good, right, so they would never attack anyone. Oh, except when God commanded them to. This also illustrates exactly how someone's erroneous world view can lead directly to evil and violence. Your beliefs about the afterlife make you ready to condone (commit?) genocide and infanticide. Do you see how?

Both sides did NOT behave the same way. One side "cannot cease from sin" and "loved the wages of unrighteousness".

They each worshipped their own God, and each attacked the other. They were almost exactly the same. The point of this passage is to worship Yahweh, not Baal. The Midianites probably had stories about how evil the Israelites were, and how they dared defy Baal and worship the evil false God, Yahweh. Also bear in mind that in the OT, sin, abomination punishable by death, includes actions such as trimming your beard (how awful!) and mixing crops (I'm sorry to have to say this in mixed company!).

Preserving the life of your own children is good.

But other people's children: O.K. to kill them?

 

[idea]

If there were no consequences to sin, we would not progress. We are refined in the fire – all of us.

Zacharia 13:9 And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.

Different peoples have different things to overcome – we are all on the same playing field, we all fall, we all need to be redeemed, it is part of the learning process. Yes, it is horrible, war is horrible, our fallen state is horrible. It takes drastic measures to save us. I trust God and what He commands us to do. He knows how everything will turn out, He sees a larger picture than we do.

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God

All things.

God wants what is best for us - all of us. When we are able to see the big picture too, we will thank Him for refining us.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
I was reading, and found a passage that pertained to this discussion. It comes from “Shanda” The Making and Breaking of a Self-Loathing Jew – by Neal Karlen

Background to the quote:
The four sons at the Passover Seder table – the wise son, the wicked son, the simple son, and the son who doesn’t even know enough to ask a question. There is also a fifth son – one who refuses to come to the Seder. He doesn’t just forget, he won’t come. Traditionally, this was the lost member of the family, theone we don’t talk about anymore, the one who “stopped being Jewish” The Rabbi then explains the fifth son is a Jew and he has to be considered as such. We have to reach out to him and get him to come to the Seder table. What part of him refuses to come to the Seder? His Jewish part. His Jewish soul is objecting because the Judaism that is being offered to him does not live up to his expectations. What he wants is a better Judaism, not no Judaism. The lost son is warning us that we’re drifting, becoming too petty, too insular, or simply just too bland. His Jewish soul is asking us to listen.
The fifth son doesn’t like negativity, He loves Joy. For most people, if they’re religious, if they like God, if they’re observant and pious, then they think they’ve also got to be serious and cautious, because around every corner lurks a potential sin. You can’t live like that, it is not what God intended, and the fifth son knows this….

There is more on the fifth son but I think that is sufficient to get the picture – here is where it gets relevant:

The fifth son gets upset because at the Seder we mention the verse of Jeremiah sixteen asking God to pour his wrath out on all the rebellious nations. But the fifth son doesn’t want to have anything to with that. He’s not like a bunch of frustrated old people who think the whole world is against you and you’re going to sit there at your Seder table and cent your frustrations on the world. He doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t think this is acceptable. And he is right.
“But the passage sounds pretty straightforward to me” I said
“The fifth son is right because nobody explained that passage to him. If you look at it at face value, it seems like venting frustrations against non-Jews. That’s not what the Torah is saying. It’s saying we want freedom in the world. We’re celebrating freedom, and freedom comes from justice. Where there is no justice, there is no freedom.”
“Sounds a little like a whitewash over that chosen business,” I countered.
“No” Rabbi Friedman said. “Freeing part of the world doesn’t mean whitewashing, it means including everyone to the same justice that we are held to. The greatest compliment you can give to a human being is: I hold you to the same standard that I hold myself. If I don’t hold you to the same standards, then I’m not treating you like a human being.”

 

[Autodidact]

If there were no consequences to sin, we would not progress. We are refined in the fire – all of us.

Kind of hard to progress once you're dead though. And again, what was the dead babies' sin again? Was it being born to the wrong parents?

Different peoples have different things to overcome – we are all on the same playing field, we all fall, we all need to be redeemed, it is part of the learning process.

Can't overcome much when you're dead.

Yes, it is horrible, war is horrible, our fallen state is horrible. It takes drastic measures to save us. I trust God and what He commands us to do. He knows how everything will turn out, He sees a larger picture than we do.

Yes, I agree. Killing babies is horrible. Your God commands it. Your God commands horror. If you happen to mistaken in your trust, then what you've got is a lot of dead people for no reason. You better hope you're right. Pascal's wager redux, anyone?

God wants what is best for us - all of us. When we are able to see the big picture too, we will thank Him for refining us.

So what is best for Midianite babies is to be hacked to death? That's the best God could do for them?

“No” Rabbi Friedman said. “Freeing part of the world doesn’t mean whitewashing, it means including everyone to the same justice that we are held to. The greatest compliment you can give to a human being is: I hold you to the same standard that I hold myself. If I don’t hold you to the same standards, then I’m not treating you like a human being.”

So by slashing the babies to death, you're holding them to the same standard you're holding yourself to? If you happened to be born to non-Jewish parents then you'd endorse being hacked to death? Wait a minute--you weren't born to Jewish parents, were you? In fact, you're a heretic. You have the sheer chutzpah to violate God's covenant with His people, to eat pork, perhaps to live uncircumsized, and violate the Sabbath on a regular basis. You' don't just sin; you revel in it. In fact, you deny that it's even sinful. You worship idols and graven images, and falsely assert that some guy named Yeshua is the Messiah, which he obviously was not, or a lot of things would have happened that didn't happen. And I'm sure that your ancestors attacked and murdered Israel a few hundred years ago, just like those abominable Midianites, at least if you're Christian and of European descent. Maybe we should hold YOU to the same standard, and hack you to death, as well as your babies, keeping only the virgins for our own bizarre and unnamed purposes. Good thing I'm not religious, isn't it?

 

[idea]

Kind of hard to progress once you're dead though.

1 Peter 3:6 For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

John 5:25 Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.

Rom 14:9 For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.

1 Cor 15:19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.


PS – I am of the house of Ephraim…